Senate probes lopsided SSS Recruitment; Osinbajo signs three executive orders and report on how political elites stole billions using the Military

Acting President Yemi Osinbajo will assent to the 2017 budget when he is satisfied with the content, his spokesperson said on Wednesday, in apparent reaction to a report that Information Minister Lai Mohammed said the government was unsure of who to sign the budget.

In exercise of the presidential authorities, Acting President Yemi Osinbajo on Thursday signed three executive orders that will significantly change some of the ways government business and operations are conducted in the country forthwith.

Ahead of the signing, Mr. Osibanjo held an interactive session at the old Banquet Hall of Presidential Villa with all relevant government officials, including ministers, permanent secretaries and heads of departments and agencies among others.

The session was meant to directly engage government officials who would be implementing the orders and the new instructions.

A new report has highlighted how Nigeria’s political elites for years hid under the cover of the country’s military to steal billions of dollars that would have been channeled into improving the living conditions of the citizens.

Corrupt officials over the years exploited the excessive secrecy of the country’s defence budget to rip off the nation, says the report released Thursday in Abuja by Transparency International Defence And Security.

The Legal Practitioner’s Privilege Committee (LPPC), has unveiled a list of candidates to be considered for the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) for 2017.

A statement by the secretary of LPPC, Ahmed Gambo Saleh, who also serve as the Registrar of Supreme Court, said Tuesday that 91 lawyers were screened for this year’s SAN award, bringing them another step closer to joining the elite club of legal practitioners.

Mr. Saleh gave a breakdown of the candidates as comprising 67 practising lawyers and 24 legal scholars.

At least two soldiers were injured on Wednesday when a female suicide bomber attacked a military post located behind a camp for internally displaced persons in Konduga town of Borno State, police said.

The attack occurred at about 7.30 a.m. when the bomber crept on the unsuspecting soldiers.

Konduga is about 35 kilometres away from Maiduguri. It is among the few local government headquarters that have been repeatedly attacked but had never been seized by the Boko Haram.

Wednesday’s attack came as the second of such incident around the neighbourhood in about 48 hours.

Alfred Aderibigbe, the man who administered several injections on Osun senator, Isiaka Adekele, shortly before his death, has testified before the Coroner inquest into the lawmaker’s, saying he was only one of many nurses the politician had in Lagos and Abuja.

Giving evidence at the inquest on Thursday in Yoruba, Mr. Aderibgbe said Mr. Adeleke consulted him for the past 20 years on matters relating to his health.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, is in the final stage of signing $6 billion worth of deals to exchange more than 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil for imported gasoline and diesel, PREMIUM TIMES has learnt.

The contracts, which come three months later than expected, include three more pairs of companies than last year, reflecting Nigeria’s increased reliance on NNPC for fuel imports.

Nigeria’s lack of local refining capacity means that it relies on imported petrol, kerosene and other petroleum products, and the oil price crash and militant attacks on Nigeria’s oil industry have starved independents of dollars for fuel imports.